[JoPP-Public] Looking for co-author - Thingiverse analysis

[Jarkko Moilanen]

[apologies if this not the right forum]

Hi, 

This might sound a bit awkward later on. I have gathered metadata from
about 117k Thingiverse.com models. Here's some graphs that I've pulled
from the data: http://ossoil.com/thingiverse

In my experience writing together with another scholar results always to
better outcome. This time I thought to try this forum :) Therefore I'm
looking for someone who might be interested about the same topics - in
this case 3D modelling community & licenses used - and who would like to
co-author an article about the results that have already been found and
what else (ideas welcome) could be found. 

About the article:

3D Printing is still a hot topic. More 3D printers are being developed
which can be seen for example in the amount of Kickstarter 3D printer
projects. Having an opportunity to use 3D printer is not enough though.
Digital 3D models are needed too and sharing the models is said to be
common among the community members. For long time Thingiverse has been
the de facto service to store digital 3D models for others to use.
According to Wikipedia Thingiverse.com "is a website dedicated to the
sharing of user-created digital design files." It is said to be "the
most widely used 3D model repositories in the Maker community". Some say
that "Thingverse is built on the concept of giving back. In other words,
as a responsible community member, you should not only download models
but also upload and share your creations to repay the community".
Other digital 3d model sharing services

Yet, not all share the same positive image of Thingiverse, which is
mostly due to issues that has been tangled around Replicator2 and Terms
of Use for Thingiverse. What connects the two items (Replicator2 and
Thingiverse) is that both were owned by same company, Makerbot
Industries, before it was acquired by 3D Printing industry giant
Stratasys in June 2013. The topics were so hot that even a 'occupy'
movement was born and some took their 3D models down from
Thingiverse.com. Around the same time, an alternative for thingiverse
was born. It is based on GitHub and is labelled as githubiverse
described by Gary Hodgson. Another alternative candidate for thingiverse
is cubehero.com. Neither githubiverse or cubehero.com seem to be
popular. Their impact, if none, on digital 3D model sharing remains to
be seen.

Inspired by the discussions about the future of Thingiverse and other
activities around the topic, I decided to do some analysis on 'things'
in Thingiverse.com. Is it really about sharing? What kind of licenses
are used? ....


-- 

Jarkko Moilanen, M.Soc.Sc
PhD Candidate
School of Information Sciences
http://www.uta.fi/sis/en/index.html
Blog: http://blog.ossoil.com